Archive for March 5th, 2009

SO JUST WHAT IS the difference between marijuana and tobacco? Unsurprisingly, but with an unexpected twist, the difference lies in the opposing actions of THC in marijuana versus nicotine in tobacco. To put it simply, nicotine has several effects that promote various cancers, but THC acts in ways that counter the cancer-causing chemicals in marijuana smoke. To put it another way, THC actually reduces the carcinogenic potential of the smoke.

As an example, recent lab research indicates that nicotine, the active and highly addictive ingredient in tobacco, activates an enzyme that converts certain chemicals in tobacco smoke into a cancer-promoting form. THC on the other hand, inhibits the enzyme necessary to activate the carcinogens found in ganga smoke.

THE AMERICAN ECONOMY has gone away. It is not coming back until free trade myths are buried six feet under. America’s 20th century economic success was based on two things. Free trade was not one of them. America’s economic success was based on protectionism, which was ensured by the union victory in the Civil War, and on British indebtedness, which destroyed the British pound as world reserve currency. Following World War II, the US dollar took the role as reserve currency, a privilege that allows the US to pay its international bills in its own currency.

World War II and socialism together ensured that the US economy dominated the world at the mid 20th century. The economies of the rest of the world had been destroyed by war or were stifled by socialism [in terms of the priorities of the capitalist growth model. Editors.]

The ascendant position of the US economy caused the US government to be relaxed about giving away American industries, such as textiles, as bribes to other countries for cooperating with America’s cold war and foreign policies. For example, Turkey’s US textile quotas were increased in exchange for over-flight rights in the Gulf War, making lost US textile jobs an off-budget war expense.

THE PEAK OIL STORY was never about running out of oil. It was about the collapse of complex systems in a world economy faced by the prospect of no further oil-fueled growth. It was something of a shock to many that the first complex system to fail would be banking, but the process is obvious: no more growth means no more ability to pay interest on credit… end of story, as Tony Soprano used to say.

There was a popular theory among Peak Oilers the last decade that the world would enter a “bumpy plateau” period when the global economy would get beaten down by Peak Oil, would then revive as “demand destruction” drove down oil prices, and would be beaten down again as oil prices shot up in response – with serial repetitions of the cycle, each beat-down taking economies lower – the only imaginable outcome being some sort of quiet homeostasis. This scenario did not play out as expected. It was predicated on a mistaken assumption that all systems would retain some kind of operational resilience while ratcheting down. Anyway, the banking system was mortally wounded in the first go-round and the behemoth is dying hard.

I’M GONNA KEEP YELLING until I see “crooks-n-cuffs.” The number of voices rising in chorus is getting louder. Janet Tavakoli, President of Tavakoli Structured Finance, wrote the following:

The premise of this week’s Fortune cover story, “Sending Wall Street to Jail,” (January 19, 2009) is not only incorrect, it lacks Common Sense. The article seems unable to muster outrage. In the words of Thomas Paine: “a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT.” Fortune talks about the difficulty of proving criminal intent when the SEC, Fed chairman and others thought (or more to the point, studiously avoided rational thought) things had gotten as bad as they could get. Now, if we have experts in this field pointing this out, and we at the same time have the mathematical certainty of Ponzi Finance, that is, the law of exponents involved, where are the police?

EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD – the force that protects us from deadly radiation bursts from outer space – is weakening dramatically. Scientists have discovered that its strength has dropped precipitously over the past two centuries and could disappear over the next 1,000 years. The effects could be catastrophic. Powerful radiation bursts, which normally never touch the atmosphere, would heat up its upper layers, triggering climatic disruption. Navigation and communication satellites, Earth’s eyes and ears, would be destroyed and migrating animals left unable to navigate.

Did you know…? All of the gold stock in the world would fit into a cube 20.5 meters to a side. Due to high amounts of industrial usage, the silver stock is even smaller, less than 14.5 meters to a side.